Fiji businessman Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji, who smuggled drugs into New Zealand has been released from jail and deported to Fiji, reports The New Zealand Herald.
The 48-year-old was the managing director of pharmacies in Fiji and across the Pacific region, under the Hyperchem group. He was also a major figure in sports, serving as a vice-president of the Fiji Football Association and as a committee member for football’s global governing body, FIFA.
Umarji pleaded guilty to importing $5 million of pseudoephedrine – a key ingredient to manufacture meth – and was sentenced in August 2023 to four years in prison.
His jail time was reduced by six months after an appeal, and Umarji appeared in front of the Parole Board for the first time last month.
Umarji acknowledged his previous actions were led by “greed”.
Umarji said he would be paid $10 per packet of the Actifed pills that were removed from the shipment by the person that he used for freight forwarding.
After a lengthy discussion, the Parole Board was persuaded it was “very unlikely” that Umarji would get back into the drug trade. It was told that Umarji no longer had any role in the family business involved with importing pharmaceuticals.
The Parole Board also accepted that Umarji was dealing with a co-offender, rather than directly with a criminal syndicate in New Zealand.
“There is no evidence that he had any ties with any of the others involved in the drug trade in New Zealand,” the Parole Board said in a written decision. “For those reasons, the board is satisfied that his risk would not be undue if he were deported back to Fiji.”
Umarji is unable to return to New Zealand until his sentence ends in February 2027.